


Koka-Kola Veins

by Letsmakeittonight



Category: Oasis (Band)
Genre: M/M, angsty aesthetics, plot? don't know her, sad baby liam, we are back at it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-08-26 17:31:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16685989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Letsmakeittonight/pseuds/Letsmakeittonight
Summary: I need you more than I love you and I love you so fucking much.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> this is like calling an old friend you havent talked to for a long time, scary but exciting. as it turned out i cant escape liam and noel and it's the only pairing that i will ever care truly about and be able to write. this is just what i love to write and i've realised it's nothing different than my other stories but - let a girl live! 
> 
> thanks to; lots of swedish music, i wish i could share (you know your'e deep into it when basically every lyrcis ever makes you think of them)
> 
> here we go

Sometimes he wishes it still was 1988. He wishes he still had the whole future in his hands.

Wishes he was still wearing those worn-out sneakers and only smoking a third of the cigarette at a time because they last longer that way. Wishes he still was that boy who was saving up for his own record player, since Noel would bring the one they had with him when he moved out but needed the nicotine more than ever because the person he wanted to be wanted by most of all hadn't touched him for three weeks. If he met himself now, that boy with the unspoiled glitter in his eyes, he would tell him to let go. Take those old posters down from the wall. Fucking forget repeating that phone-number in his head until he knew it by heart. Stop daydreaming about his stupid kisses. He will love you back eventually anyway. 

He wonders what would've happened if Noel never came to see him sing that cold evening in the crowded pub. If Liam hadn't laid there sweaty and vulnerable on Noel’s living room carpet after their first shag in over a year and with an uncharacteristic softness in his voice asked if his big brother wouldn't mind giving them his songs. Giving him his songs, his attention, his approval. 

He wonders what would've happened if Noel had said no. If their van had broken down on their way to that gig in Glasgow. If Noel had never written that stupid love song about being saved. If Liam hadn't drunk that seventh beer. If he had loved Noel just a tiny, tiny bit more. Or less. If that was even possible. 

If that endless summer when he was sixteen had never existed and his feelings hadn't started to live a life of their own, racing towards wrong directions in a terrible speed. Because it all started there, with a red walkman and borrowed t-shirts and beer in warm plastic cups and his own bloody brother making his heart beat too fast in his scrawny chest. 

Sometimes he wish it would've been that way. Maybe he would've been able to keep that version of Noel he loved and made him stay with him forever, keep him from changing, from slipping away. Though, thinking about it twice, Noel was his once. And that time, those times when he truly, fully was his, was the better than anything else in the whole bloody universe.


	2. A Little Tremble in the Voice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm on the edge of something shattering  
> I'm coming through

Liam lays on his stomach on the bed, legs in the air, swinging slightly back and forth in no particular rhythm. It’s a lukewarm afternoon and Liam isn't going to school tomorrow and not the day after either because he has a long and, even if he doesn't know it now, quite overwhelming and fucking intense summer break ahead of him. He chews on his lip, brings the tip of his finger to it to see if he has drawn blood. Noel pretends to be busy tuning his guitar which clearly sounds perfectly alright. Noel plays the same chord again. Liam sighs. Liam looks at his bony fingers, how they curl over the strings gently as the veins pops up against the surface when his muscles tenses. His eyes follows the dark hair that grows over Noel’s wrist, up and disappearing under the sleeve of his gray hoodie. Liam knows the fabric is soft and the collar is a bit stretched out, just enough so that the contour of his big brother’s collarbone is visible to him there on the other side of the room. 

He has spent a lot of time looking at Noel lately. Lots of small details attaching themselves to his memory and every now and then when he least expects it they will just pop up and make him lose his breath for half a second. Liam wonders if small details about him ever got stuck in Noel’s mind, if he ever thought about what it would feel like to put his hand up under Liam’s shirt or have his lip in between his teeth. He imagines that Noel does and almost lets out a content noise. Liam flips over so he’s laying on his back and it feels sort of weird in his chest, not bad just…weird. It flutters inside, it’s something vaguely warm that’s climbing up his throat. He doesn't realise it now but in six months he will know what that feeling is and how much pain it will come to cause him. Cause them. 

~

It turns out to be a very rainy summer. Liam kicks around a football with two mates and the grass is too slippery and wet but he doesn't want to go home. He's not really that good at football, he’s not really that good at anything. Not like Noel. Noel can play guitar and tell jokes that makes everybody laugh and he cooks the best scrambled eggs and makes Liam fuzzy inside like no one has ever done or will. When he's on his way home he sees his brother smoking outside the record store with a guitar case on his back. For a tiny second, when he's far away he just thinks it’s a dark-haired boy who would certainly be his type if Liam liked boys (because he doesn’t, right?). He’s about to cross the road because it’s as if Noel’s gaze are drawing Liam towards him. Liam hides his mouth under the collar of his jacket, the football wet under his arm. Just then a car pulls up at the side of the road and in ten seconds Noel opens the door and he laughs and he jumps in and he disappears and Liam stands there with his hair dripping into his eyes. The blue car is disappearing down the lane and Liam holds on tight to the ball under his arm. It’s not until now that he realises how hard his heart is beating in his chest. 

~

Liam is hungover like an animal and wakes up at two in the afternoon of the sound of Noel’s bedsprings moving. He winces, head throbbing, skin sticky. It’s raining outside, hitting the window hard. Liam blinks and is just about to turn his head when a muffled moan breaks trough the room. Heavy breathing. Liam turns his gaze to the side with the duvet pulled up to his nose, carefully, soundless. 

Noel cut his hair yesterday and he’s wearing a white t-shirt with rolled up sleeves, his arm is disappearing under the blanket, naked chest, lean muscles, fast movements with his wrist. Liam swallows hard, would do anything to see what’s under there, see Noel’s hand wrapping around his cock, the same one Liam fantasies about every fucking time he rubs one off. He pretends it’s big, thick and warm, feels how his own dick is rising against his thigh as Noel’s hand speeds up and he arches his back and Liam closes his eyes and listens to his brother coming into the pillow. Liam’s heart is throbbing in his whole body and pre-cum is drooling down his thigh as he hears Noel stumbling out of the room. 

~

Noel has a black book with striped pages, filled with words, sentences, chords. On some pages, there’s stuff about that blue-eyed, fragile boy sleeping at the other side of the room. Sometimes he considers setting the whole thing on fire, watch the flame eat it all up, make it go away. He keeps it i his pocket, under his pillow or in his guitar case. Out of reach. 

Liam know Noel writes songs, hears him trough the window when he’s having a smoke outside sometimes. Hates the way his brother’s voice makes tears build in his throat. It lays on the windowsill one day, the book. Visible, tempting and torn. Liam snatches it, throws himself on his bed and eagerly starts flipping trough the pages. He frowns as his eyes travel over his brother’s ink-coloured words about things no one else will ever see and never dying and an angel. 

He swallows hard. It all comes crashing down on him. 

~

I've been listening to your breathingI've been tryna count sheep, yeahI've been staring at the ceiling for so longHoping you would come

~

Liam is sitting on the countertop with a box of cereal in his lap. He’s eating them straight out of the package, they stick to his fingers and fall to the linoleum floor. He looks at Noel. Noel is hungover with red-tinted eyes and white skin and are about to pass out over his untouched cup of coffee. Liam thinks he’s pretty. 

”Noel.” he likes the sound of his big brother’s name. He wants to say it again and again and again. Noel doesn't answer, his eyebrows are sinking low on his face and Liam are licking the cereal off from his fingers. 

”Your songs-”

”What?” Noel suddenly turns his face up with something strange in his eyes. He looks at Liam now.   
”I read your songs right and-” he takes a deep and wheezy breath. 

”Are they about me?”

It becomes dead silent for half a minute. 

”No.”

”Fuck no.” Noel snorts, hard. 

”Fuck off they are!” Liam laughs, puts away the carton. In his dream Noel confesses everything, they share a toffee-crips-tasting kiss and maybe, preferably, Noel pulls is pants down and takes him over the kitchen table. Noel is coming up to him and Liam’s pulse splints. His brother puts down his coffeecup on the countertop with a hard thud. 

”They are not about you.” he leaves the kitchen and Liam rests his head against the cabinet behind him, hears how furiously Noel climbs the stairs, his dick erect and standing inside his pyjamas shorts. 

~

Liam is caught under a girl who has wrist that smells like sweet briers. She kisses his neck, licks under his ear and pants wetly against his mouth. In the dark room Liam doesn't see anything, the bed is slightly swaying under him and under his tongue the bitter taste of corner-store-vodka is lingering. The girl kisses and kisses until it feels like there are no skin left on his throat. His mind is full of Noel. Everywhere. On the back of his eyelids, over his skin, inside his lungs. 

”Do you have any siblings?” he chokes out, heavy breathing. 

”What?” she almost chuckles and withdraws, leaving cold saliva traces on Liam’s skin.   
”Do you have a brother?”

”Why…why are you asking?” her voice is annoyed. She just wants to fuck. Liam’s shirt are pushed upp, the hairs on his stomach rising. There are kisses there now. He barely feels them. 

”I have and he’s a…he’s a fucking cunt… and he writes songs, he says they're not about me but-”

”I-I know, they are yeah?” his voice is thick now, desperate and he brings his hand up to his heated neck and rubs away the dampness of her spit. 

”Alright.” the girl mumbles into his skin, like she didn't even hear and her hand finds its way into Liam’s cotton boxers, it’s warm and her fingers are sweaty when she closes them around his cock. Liam takes a deep breath and thinks of Noel’s back barely covered by that striped duvet in their room. His heart flutters and rises up in-between his collarbones. 

~

Liam borrows (steals) Noel’s new walkman while his brother is in the shower. He doesn't even check what tape that’s in it, too afraid to get caught. He puts the headphones on and pulls his hood up because it’s November and cold. Without a ticket he gets on the train into town, sits down next to the window and puts his feet up on the seats in front of him. He hasn't pressed play yet because he’s slightly nervous for some odd reason.

Noel has this other world, this secret world with late-night gigs and yellowish vinyl cases and people with band-shirts way more interesting than Liam. Liam sees a twinkle growing in his brother’s eyes when he turns his record player on, hears the change in his voice when he talks about seeing some new band with his mate on the phone. He wants to know what it’s all about, wants to be in that world with Noel but he just doesn't get it, that’s what Noel says at least. 

There’s mist on the train window and the lights in the night starts moving out there and Liam starts the tape. At first there’s just distant noises and Liam leans back in the seat, inpatient. Then the bass-line starts, slowly at first but before he knows it, he's completely engulfed in it. He closes his eyes and Noel is kissing him in his mind. As the guitar gets faster so does Liam’s pulse because there’s something about the sound, a sensuality that triggers those imaginations about a dimmed room and big brother’s hands on his thighs. Noel’s cock warm and thick for him under his pants. They sing about wanting to be adored. Liam’s sure that is the word for it all. He adores Noel. He wants Noel to adore him. He listens to the song seven times feeling that wish growing too big inside his chest.  
~

It’s foggy outside. Liam buys a six-pack of beer and gets on Paul’s bike that lays thrown in the front garden. His hands are getting red and frozen when he pedals up the hill and his legs are burning but it doesn't matter because he’s close to breaking inside. He slept in his big brother’s bed last night, crawled up close like when they were children. But they aren't children anymore, now they are a mess of long, scrawny limbs and weird feelings and heartbeats sounding just the same against each other and sweaty, needy palms not knowing where to rest. Liam said he had a bad dream but it wasn't even true and Noel probably knew but was too tired or perhaps too drunk to argue. The first time Liam woke Noel had his arm wrapped around his waist. His cold bracelets and soft hair against sensitive skin. The second time the arm was gone and Noel too. The chain on the bike breaks after five minutes and he has to lead it the rest of the way to the party one of his mates was throwing at his house. He’s in an enormous need of some distraction, to forget about Noel for one fucking second. But he still feels his brothers arm around his waist and his breath against is neck. Fucking shit. 

~

Liam is drunk when Noel kisses him for the first time. With tongue and teeth and heart. He’s drunk and he’s laying on a cold bathroom floor and everything is ugly and wrong, everything expect Noel’s mouth. It’s the prettiest fucking thing he’s ever experienced. Noel doesn't stop kissing him. There’s wet sounds in the dark and Liam is pressing himself close, close. Noel’s pulse against his. Noel’s tongue against his. Alike, the same, together. Liam is breaking but Noel is building him up and gluing him together again. He doesn't remember more. He wants to remember but he doesn’t. It’s now he decides that he will remember all of Noel’s other kisses to the tiniest detail. 

~

Liam stops sleeping with a shirt, starts staying up late, waiting, hoping. 

~

Just outside their bedroom window there’s a flat square of roof where a puddle collects when it rains. If you step up on Noel’s bed and crouch yourself down enough so that you can climb out of the window and if it’s not cloudy, you can sit there watching the stars at night. Or you can haul yourself down the rusty downpipes and run off to the pub when your heart won’t stop beating in your ear when you're trying to sleep. Tonight though, the sky is clear and the moon is big and luminous. Liam has his face deeply buried in Noel’s neck, planning to never ever move again. They don't speak because there’s nothing to say but at the same time there’s more to say than ever but that’s difficult and both of them are just too tired for difficult. The tip of Liam’s nose is icy and probably red, digging into Noel’s artery. It’s been hours since the sun sunk down behind the rooftops and left them but they aren't going to leave yet. There’s no cigarettes left in Noel’s teared package that lays thrown at his sneakers, he smokes the last one now. Liam smells like burnt skin, a pink circle from the cigarette tip is still glowing on the back of his hand and Noel strokes his thumb over it. Even if he’s as gentle as his twenty-one year old self can be Liam winces. 

”Noel.” the younger mumbles, though he could've said just about anything. He will tell him now, he thinks. His pulse is raising just thinking about it. 

”What?” his brother answers. That’s Noel’s morning-voice but it’s the middle of the night which is weird Liam thinks. Then again a lot of things have been weird lately. Liam finally turns his head just enough so that Noel can see his heavy-lidded eyes just begging him to understand without having to utter the words. 

”I-I think that…” he starts out, his voice uneven and thick. Noel keeps looking at him, his eyes so terribly blue there under the thick brows. Liam doesn't know how to continue, maybe he didn't even know what he wanted to say in the first place. Because no one ever taught him how to explain to his brother that he has suddenly got those feelings that probably, maybe, might be sort of a little not-right and honestly pretty fucking scary. So scary that when he thinks about them too much and Noel finally asked him what was wrong all he could do was to stab his cigarette into his hand just to escape from the answer. And maybe because a different kind of pain is a nice break. Noel’s hand comes resting on his waist now and in the distance a train is passing by.   
”What would you do if I died?” Liam blurts out instead of all the other things he had planned to say just when the sound dies out. Noel frowns deeply at him, getting a weird taste in his mouth from the question and Liam scratches his nose. 

”You won’t die.” 

His voice is hard and he looks away.

”And if you did-”

”Fuck, if you did…” 

”I would too.” 

So I could be with you. 

Liam leans into Noel’s neck once again, bites his tongue hard and wonders if the song coming from Noel’s record player inside has always been this sad.

~

It’s dark and the stairs to the second floor is never ending. Liam’s stomach hurts and his clothes are wet from the rain. He’s just been kissed, touched by another boy in the wet grass on the football field. His cheeks are still red and his nose burning. Noel isn’t home, it’s empty in his unmade bed. Liam stares at it, at his brothers sweater that lies thrown on the edge of the bed, gets reminded of what’s growing inside of him. He takes it in his hands, brings it up to his face, sits on the floor. How do you live with the realisation that all other kisses in the whole fucking world expect from your brother’s is insignificant and superfluous? 

~

”You suck.” Liam pops down on Noel’s bed, messy hair, twinkling eyes. Noel is playing guitar. 

”You swallow.” 

Liam smiles. 

”Oh how did you know?”

”Shut up.” 

”Fucking stop it Liam.” Noel snarls as his younger sibling is pretending to suck something imaginary he’s pretending to hold in his hand. Liam just grins and pulls his most sultry face, heavy lids, tongue out. Noel slaps him across the face, hard. 

”What the fuck?” Liam stares at Noel, it hurts. There’s something in his brother’s eyes, darkness, inclination. 

He’s holding a tight grip of Liam’s shirt collar. Liam’s breathing is heavy, outside it’s below zero. Inside Liam it’s burning. He feels Noel’s breath on his nose. He leans forward and kisses him, softly, with a closed mouth, keeping his lips pressed against Noel’s until the older’s hand finds the back of his head and he’s kissing him back. Noel is pushing him down against the sheets and their mouths are open now, wanting, desperate and Liam wants to cry because it’s all he ever wanted. 

~

The first time Liam takes his clothes of for Noel is a Friday afternoon. Thin sweatpants over sharp hipbones, soft sweatshirt that hits the worn out parquet and sweaty palms. His skin is so white and he doesn't dare to look Noel in the eyes where he’s sitting on the bed, head resting against the wall. It’s almost winter now, Liam’s nipples hard and pink and exposed. He’s so hard and the only thing his big brother has down is to stare at him under dark brows. Wet stains on his underwear and heartbeat that could be heard all the way to London when Noel tells him to come and straddle his thighs. 

~

Everything bursts. Cold noses and frozen fingers and wet lips and white snowflakes on the windowsill, white cum on the cheek, trembling hands, Noel’s mouth on the insides of his warm thighs. 

~

”Like that?”

Liam nods, gasps, hiding his face in his arm. Noel is taking him from behind on the floor among moving-boxes and empty beer cans. Mouths open, panting. Liam forgets how it feels to be fucked, how it makes him lose it, forget, moan like they do on film. He lives to have Noel’s cock inside of him and if he said that out loud Noel would come now. The floor gets wet from Liam’s spit and the cheap lube Noel buys at the cornershop. It’s all new, too much, too good and Liam fears he won’t ever be able to live without it as Noel orgasms inside of him. 

~

Liam sits squeezed in between two mates, a hand on his thigh. He’s seventeen now and a whole decimeter taller. He smokes and drinks until he vomits almost every weekend. He watches football and breaks shop-windows. He has dark hair on his arms and a new jacker and everything is supposed to be perfect but the only thing he can think about is his fucking never-present big brother that are going to move. That are going to leave him and their constructed dream world in the bedroom on the second floor. The tears are burning in the throat and he doesn't even now that soon, Noel will leave him for real. Liam wants to burn down the whole of Manchester. 

No one ever told him it was going to hurt like that. No one ever told him that his heart would weep every night spent anywhere else but next to his brother. No one ever told him that it was never going to go away. He was just about to find out.


	3. Bulletproof Baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This dream is all I need because it’s all I ever had. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im !! terrible !! at updating !! 
> 
> time literally flies 
> 
> so basically i just wanted to make this chapter about the time where noel has moved and liam was still in school and i just imagine it being pretty simple and nice. not much happening but hopefully a nice atmosphere! (i hope the whole thing is not too...vauge? messy?) 
> 
> enjoyyy

Liam sees life as a battlefield, a constant, explosive, unpredictable fight. You feel and do everything wholeheartedly because you have to in order to survive. Or perhaps as a sea, with its waves and deep, blue depths. He thinks Noel is different though. That his brother sees life more as a road. Straight forward, determined, eliminating every obstacle on the way to get to the end of it, the goal. There might be a sidewalk on the road with space for somebody else, but it’s small and it’s slippery. Not like on a wide, open battlefield or a glittery ocean that stretches in every direction until it reaches the horizon. And on the road, you’re all alone. 

 

~

 

Liam buys a pack of cigarettes and a strawberry milkshake for his last pocket money. He has started to get shaky hands and itchy eyes when he goes without nicotine for more than two hours. The milkshake makes his teeth hurt and he thinks about sniffing glue and Noel spitting in his mouth. Noel’s bed is empty every night now, his things are gone and Liam is all alone with half a bottle of Noel’s shaving cream and a big hole inside. He has one of his brother’s records in his backpack and he’s going to Noel’s stupid flat to return it. Right now he’s a few streets away, waiting, because he has decided he’s gonna be late. Have Noel waiting for him, just like he keeps him waiting. Always fucking waiting, pacing, longing. It’s fine though because Noel still wants to see him and they don’t fight that much, less now when he has moved. They fuck a lot and Noel lets him hear his songs sometimes when they’ve been drinking. Later, he’s gonna think about these months every night and about how it was almost all he ever wanted, really.

 

Noel is fresh out of the shower when he opens the door for Liam, a towel around his waist and wet bangs. He doesn’t smile when he sees him, just frowns slightly as he lets his brother in. Liam is used to it.

 

”Are you alone?” He ask first thing. He can’t even hold it in.

 

”Yes.” Happiness.

 

”Until Sunday.” Bliss. He bites the inside of his cheek not to smile.

 

”Are you just gonna stand there like an idiot or what?”

 

”No, shut up.”

 

”Do you want something to drink?”

 

He really does.

 

It’s a Friday evening and Liam can see the sun setting behind the rooftops, sitting in Noel’s kitchen window with the sleeves of his school uniform shirt rolled up. Noel have cans of coke in the fridge, a bottle of cheap vodka and a bag of pot and Liam’s favourite neck ever. Three empty glasses on the small table and Liam is high in Noel’s knee, back against his chest, head on his brother’s shoulder. It should all be so good. Noel’s warm hand on his stomach. It should be like this all the time.

 

”I just want to, you know, _have_ you for a while for once.”

 

”You have me but I don’t have you do I? I don’t. Why?” Liam continues, tracing Noel’s jawline with his fingertip.

 

”I don’t understand Noel, I just wanna be with you, hell it’s so simple really but-but it-”

 

”Doesn’t work like that.” Noel interrupts.

 

”No.”

 

Suddenly Noel’s eyes look so sad and he’s frowning, because he knows. Then he leans downwards and kisses him, hard. Noel grabs his hair, breathing heavy as his tongue finds its way into Liam’s warm mouth. _They just don’t work like that._

 

~

 

Liam often found himself thinking about being trapped in a fire. A burning, vicious fire, needing to be saved. He’s not alone in the fire. No, there is always someone else. Sometimes it’s one of Noel’s stupid mates, older girlfriends or something materialistic, a record deal, a Gibson les Paul, a backpack stuffed with cocaine. It all comes down to one thing, what would his brother save? It’s stupid but Liam’s skin itches thinking about it. Thinking about that, perhaps, the person you want the most in the world would let you burn out. 

 

~

 

Liam is laying on Noel’s carpet, underneath the kitchen table, only in soft cotton boxers and his uniform tie loosely tied around his head. It tastes vodkacola when his brother kisses him, over his face, on the mouth, on the neck. He’s drunk, but only a little, just enough, okay. Warm in the cheeks, heavy in the arms. He wants Noel, it gets worse for every time.

 

”You’ve been waiting so long.” Noel mumbles into his skin, thumbing on Liam’s pert nipples, making his thighs tingle like fizzypop in your mouth. He has been waiting. Noel hasn’t fucked him for weeks and it’s unbearably tiring to walk around with the realisation that all you want is for your brother to pin you down and fuck the shit out of you. Really.

 

”Yes, been thinking about it like all the fucking time.”

 

”About what?” Noel grins, his hand grabbing Liam’s chin. He doesn't want to blush but it’s terrible warm there on the carpet and Noel is blatantly _teasing_ him now.

 

”Let me touch _you_ ” Liam mumbles, trying to get his hand in between their bodies, get a grip of Noel. His wrists are being held away and he pouts, wants to feel Noel’s cock in his hand.

 

”Liam. Come on, tell me.”

 

” _You_ know.” He glances at Noel underneath his fringe as he pulls his underwear off, unnecessarily slowly over his skinny hips, dragging it out until Liam’s hard cock slaps against his stomach. Noel wraps a hand around it, thumb stroking gently over the head and Liam whimpers both because it feels like sparks but also because he knows it gets his brother off.

 

”I do?”

 

Dirty and mean.

 

Liam lets his legs fall open as a response, hand reaching down to pull one asscheek a bit to the side and he’s not even embarrassed because his soaked in need. Noel’s fingers is there now, rubbing over his hole and Liam forgets to breathe.

 

”You want to come around my fingers.” It’s not a question, it’s a establishment and Liam just pulls on Noel’s wrists and mumbles something like _yes yes yes now please before I break_.

 

_~_

 

Noel’s alarm goes off at a quarter to six and Liam wants to cry. It feels like needles in his hands and it’s still dark outside, cold wind against the window.

 

”Liam.” Noel sounds annoyed, he pushes Liam in the shoulder with his hand under the duvet. He needs to leave as soon as possible. Gather his clothes from the floor, swallow down the galling hurt and catch the crowded train that goes at half past six. Needs to be gone, not to raise suspicion or whatever. He doesn’t really care. Noel does though. But his sheets are warm and soft and his brothers naked torso feels so good against his cheek.

 

”Hey.” Noel pushes him again and Liam sighs, sits up unwillingly and finds the switch to turn on the lamp on the nightstand. He rubs his eyes, everything is blurry.

 

”This is fucking bullshit.”

 

Noel turns to look at him, sleepy eyes. Liam sort of expects a sarcastic comment or an commanding answer.

 

”Yeah.”

 

It’s quite for a bit and Liam just looks at Noel and his disheveled hair and blue, blue eyes.

 

”I know.”

 

”Do you have money for a ticket?”

 

He nods but Noel reaches for his wallet in the pocket of his jeans on the floor anyway. He hands him a bill and for a moment Liam feels like a whore who’s getting paid. It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. Noel follows him to the hallway and Liam has to walk slowly, Noel fucked him really hard last night, first against the wall in the tiny hallway and then half on top of the bed, scoring the parquet. Liam hopes that every time his brother sees the scratch in the floor he will think of him. He puts his shoes on, hangs his backpack over his shoulder, feels Noel’s eyes on him. He wants to stay so bad.

 

”Well, okay then.”

 

One hand on the cold door handle, the other on the back of his neck. His brother comes up to him, strokes the back of his head softly, over the hair, hand warm and familiar. The gesture is almost too soft, makes Liam’s stomach feel an effervescent tablet and he has to shrug Noel’s hand away. It falls to his shoulder instead.

 

”I will come home in the beginning of next week yeah?” Liam makes a mental note on how his bother still refers to their crowded council house as home. Where Liam is.

 

”Behave.” Noel grins and Liam opens the door, steps halfway out.

 

”Fuck off.”

 

”You too.”

 

Noel doesn’t close the door until Liam is out of sight.

 

On his way home the sky is a dark shade of orange in the distance, big clouds tinted in red and purple. The sun is just minutes from rising, covering the streets in light. Liam thinks it looks like the last judgment day is coming, wonders if his soul is spoiled. If the sin has eaten its way inside of it, engulfing it completely. Wondering if hell would allow him and Noel to be together.

 

~

 

Noel has new friends with ugly haircuts and a bloody band.

 

”They look shit, bet they sound shit too.”

 

Liam is sitting on the edge of the small bathtub in Noel’s apartment, watching his brother carefully shaving his face, rinsing the razor under the open tap.

 

”Oh cause you got such knowledge about music right.” Noel doesn’t draw his eyes from the mirror.

 

”I know what sounds good and what doesn’t right. What looks good and what doesn’t too and let me tell you those twats-”

 

”Shut up.”

 

Liam hates how defensive Noel gets about all of this, how much he seems to get along with them, how much he seems to _like_ them. He is careful to show it though, doesn’t want Noel to get angry with him for real now. He doesn’t want to leave.

 

”You should take me with you tonight yeah? If you wanna prove me wrong or summat.” He tries, velvety voice.

 

”Never, you’re just gonna embarrass the fuck out of me.”

 

”No! I will be like, real good.” Liam tilts his head to the side, twinkling eyes. Noel looks at him trough the mirror as he wipes his face with a towel. Liam smiles. Noel throws the towel in the sink.

 

The music turns out to be alright and Noel holds himself near Liam all the time, a hand around his wrist in the dark crowd. The hours pass, after-party, drinks, but it’s _boring_ and everyone is older and just wants to talk to Noel and Liam’s jacket feels too big, like it’s swallowing him up. Around half past twelve he puts a hand on Noel’s knee under the table and it takes twenty minutes of wandering, and discrete rubbing until he has a hard-on.

 

Liam never thought this would actually happen, this was just something guys made up and bragged about, besides the stalls were way too small to fuck. Perhaps on purpose. He’s on his knees in one of them now anyway, Noel towering above him with heavy lids and wet lips. Noel’s jeans and boxers are around his knees and Liam is licking around the head of his dick, over the hard shaft, getting it wet before slowly sliding it inside his mouth. Noel puts his hand on his head, firm, fingertips in silky hair. Liam feels like he’s being given a blessing. As if Noel is a saint and he’s sucking his holy, pious cock and, as his hand guides Liam’s head further down all the way to the base making tears swell in his eyes, he’s giving him salvation. He starts laughing and chokes when Noel’s hot cum fills his mouth.

 

~

 

Liam throws up all over the pavement of the train-platform and it’s early early morning and Noel has lost him. Or left him. He doesn’t even know. Sleet falls from the sky as Liam leans against a ticket machine not to fall. He pulls his beanie down over his cold ears and even though Noel just fucked off and left him with too much liquor in his soon-to-be eighteen year old body and an upcoming sinus infection, somehow he’s still his whole world. How do you deal with that?

 

~

 

Liam is still sick but hasn't seen his brother for two weeks so he waits outside of his door with a snotty nose and speeding heart until Noel comes home late. He just looks at Liam. Sighs.

 

”It’s not the time now.”

 

Liam frowns, he doesn’t even know what he’s done, other than just existing but Noel is stoned and pissed off with dark eyes. 

 

”I just wanted to see you man.”

 

”Fuck off Liam, you can’t stay okay?”

 

”Why you gotta be such a fucking cunt for?”

 

”You can’t just show up like this, don’t you understand, I’m just trying to live my bloody life but you just keep-”

  
”Keep what?”

 

”Ruining everything!”

 

Then, Noel says that Liam is the worst thing that has happened to him. Liam hits him hard in the face, again and again. There’s blood running from Noel’s nose which, in profile is like the prettiest thing Liam has seen and it’s red and sticky and splashes up on Liam’s cheek when Noel pushes him down on the hard ground. His head hurts, his chest tight, heart bruised. Noel lays beside him, panting and it’s so quite. 

 

”Do you really mean it?”

 

”Noel?”

 

He grabs Liam’s wrist softly. Now he sees that Noel’s eyes are damp.

 

”Sometimes.” 

 

The smell of blood, of iron, is in Liam’s nostrils. It’s comforting because it reminds him that Noel is breakable.

 

~

 

Liam sees her one night when he’s out. The luckiest girl on the planet. Neither of them is alone and she doesn’t even see him, it’s too dark, crowded. Purple light and sweaty bodies. Her hair is almost white, her tv commercial smile is sparkling. Pure. His bother loves her and Liam feels sick to the stomach, standing there with a glass in his hand feeling like a demon for just being near her. He stumbles backwards, someone drops their pint to the floor, he doesn’t know this song. Everything just feels wrong. He is wrong.

 

~

 

They get home to Noel’s place from the pub close to three a night in the middle of the week. Liam forgets that Noel doesn’t live here alone, because hes only ever allowed here when Lousie is not around. He feels like Noel’s biggest secret ever as he sits in Noel’s bed and his brother is leaning in the doorway with dilated pupils and a hard-on inside his black jeans. He’s smoking and the ash is just dropping to the carpet. Noel is sucking almost desperately on the cigarette and his hand is grabbing hard at the wood of the doorframe. Liam pulls a hand trough his hair and feels fucking divine from the way Noel is looking at him, how he wants him, needs him. He’s wearing a ribbon choker in a deep, sultry shade of red, almost burgundy, sinful. It shouldn’t be there around Liam’s slim throat but it is.

 

He stole it from a girl he had followed home after one of those crowded, sweaty home parties. She had passed out on top of the flowery bedsheet of her tiny bedroom and Liam had found all these pretty things inside the drawers of her makeup table. Pale satin bralettes and cheap lacy panties and sticky, half-empty lipglosses. In the mirror he could see his own soft chest in the dim light of her nightstand lamp. He had found it and it was too pretty, too tempting not to. When he tried it on he couldn’t look himself in the eye.

 

Noel is close now, hands on the back of Liam’s thighs, his waist, everywhere. Behind him, Liam standing on his knees in the soft bed. Noel grabbing his bare ass, biting his neck. Liam sucks on his fingers, two because it’s enough, three because he loves when Noel stretches him out.

 

”It’s for me.” Noel’s voice and the sound of his zipper going down. It’s Liam’s ultimate daydream. He just moans as a response, and he can’t stop because Noel is entering him now.

 

”You are for me, yeah?”

 

Liam blushes a hellish shade of red and thanks god that Noel can't see it. Noel’s hand is resting on his throat, on the red velvet, gently. The other one is on his hip, guding, back and forth on his cock, big and, he swears to god, made for him. It doesn’t even burn anymore like it did the first times and his body knows Noels body now, wants it and Liam wishes for it to go on forever.

 

~

 

The necklace is still around his throat and he hears Noel’s heart beating in his chest.

 

”You really don’t need her you know.” He whispers in the dark.

 

Noel looks away. Liam doesn’t really know what to make of it.

 

~

 

”Bless me father for I have sinned.”

 

Liam closes his eyes. 

 

"Uhm, it’s been…two years since my last confession.” 

 

He can barely remember that a two years ago existed. In-between it’s just sweaty palms and sticky pills and quivering thighs and _him_. It’s sin. He feels like his mere existence is just one damp spot of sin. More so than ever now when he’s here alone, feeling so fucking small between the cold walls of the church. 

 

”My sins are, well, the last year it’s been…you don’t even have an idea. I’ve tried not to do it, not to think it, father I swear I have but it won’t go away. 

 

Deep breathes.

 

”And it’s just…fuck…oh sorry I-”

 

”Excuse my filthy mouth.” 

 

It remains unsettlingly quite on the other side, silence, nothing. His neck is sweaty, his hands are shaky. It’s late in the evening and he doesn’t even know why he’s here. If he even believes in God. But sometimes, when he’s alone, shame and panic grabs onto his chest and he gets scared. Terrified. And before he can get a response or ten holy Marys or confirmation that somebody listened he’s running down the aisle, away from the crucifixes and judging angels. It’s dark outside and he smashes his fist into the cobblestone wall until it’s pulsating, fighting the piling sobs until he can barely breathe anymore.

 

~

 

Down the road there’s a phone box and Liam has some coins in his backpocket and Noel’s number memorised in his mind. It’s all you need.

 

”Can I come home to yours?”

 

”Please?”

 

_He can._

 

And when Noel pulls him into his bedroom the window is flown open by the wind and all the papers on his desk is swept down on the floor. The Manchester night with its tiny droplets of light rain and cars passing is searching its way into the little room and suddenly they aren’t hidden anymore. Liam shoves his tongue inside Noel’s soft mouth and his hand is sweaty on his brother’s defined shoulder. And in this moment, everything is fine.


	4. Blackfriars Bridge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We are not even real.  
> Nor are the things we think we feel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short little angsty chapter. no excuses for taking so horribly long to update! no excuses for the lack of quality...

He will give it three more days. Decides that after three days he will be fed up, done, over, _sick_ of this. He will leave this apartment in the dark early morning for the last time. He will end it and it will feel so fucking empowering, he will feel relieved, in charge, like he’s the big brother. Surely. He will go out on his own, take the train in the total opposite direction of Noel and go to a bar he’s never been to before and his pretty-boy face will get him free pints and a mediocre blow job in a bus shelter. And Noel will be sorry, Liam needs him to be at least. So very sad without him.

Right now Noel doesn't know about it though, as Liam is biting into his soft sheets, heavy taste of some cheap milk-mixed liquor inside his mouth, letting him fuck into him from behind. He thinks it’s all fine now, but not for long.

 

~

 

”I don’t want it anymore.”

 

”What exactly?”

 

”You know.”

 

”Do I now?”

 

”Yeah and I won’t be having it no more me.”

 

”Where the fuck is this coming from?”

 

”I just don’t want you anymore, I’m-”

 

He’s on the verge of uttering the words ”breaking up with you”, so very close to saying it but he realises it’s just too surreal, as if the very absurdity of them physically stops them from leaving his mouth.

 

”It’s over.”

 

Noel is quite, a long gap with just a few low breathes. Liam isn’t feeling so good as he thought he would, it’s an uneasy lump in the pit of his stomach but he surely can’t back down now. He realises that his brother has hung up, no more breathes traveling trough the telephone lines hanging over the city. Maybe someone cut them off. Liam lays the phone down, rests his upper body o the kitchen table. Thinks about what he will do on Friday evening now, when everything has sort of changed.

 

~

 

Noel showed him how to pour a can of coke over vanilla ice cream and how to have better orgasms by keeping your socks on. Fuzzy, tingly tips.

 

~

 

Liam eats fish and chips from a food truck near the harbour with a friend. It’s spring but it’s raining and the trees are still leaf-less and dead looking. It’s been about two weeks since that phone call and it’s fine. He hasn’t seen him. But it’s going fine, eating with a plastic fork and damp jeans and feeling normal. His friend mentions that stupid band Noel hangs around with and Liam keeps a straight face.

”What about them?”

 

”Heard they were going on tour, you know, America and all.”

 

He almost chokes on his vinegar soaked fries.

 

”Doesn’t your brother hang about with them?”

 

Liam shakes his head, stands up and shoves the rest of his mashed peas and soggy fish into a bin. It’s nothing going fine anymore. Not one bloody bit.

 

”They are fucking shit anyway.”

 

~

 

Liam tries to call him when he gets home, wet and with a heartbeat in his stomach and frozen fingertips. He tries five times. Ten times. Two hundres fifty three thousand times. No one picks up.

 

~

 

He sees Noel at one am in a pub by the bar. When he comes back from the toilets and he hasn’t even been drinking so much so he knows it’s real. Too real. Noel is pretty, looks the same but different and Liam has to stop and swallow. He has a leather jacket because it’s warmer outside now and new white trainers and a wrist watch. No one of his mates has watches.

 

_Hello everything alright didn't expect to see you here are you alone how are you I tried to call have you been away I was just-_

 

”You called it off.”

 

”I’m sorry.”

 

It’s not even hard to get it out. Noel doesn’t understand. Liam tries to grab his arm. He accidentally shoves Noel’s pint down from off the bar disk and glass splitters all over the floor and he stands there with beer-soaked trainers watching as Noel leaves.

 

~

 

Sometimes Liam fears time. When he’s about to fall asleep or when he’s in the bath and the realisation that every day that goes by brings him closer to death and that Noel will die and perhaps will before him because he’s older hits him and the throat gets dry and he’s sinking down under the surface, down and further down and everything that is the real world is shut out and he swears on his mother that if he’s alive when Noel dies he’s going to jump from blackfriars bridge.

 

~

 

Liam wishes he could grab a pair of scissors and mercilessly cut out that day from his life. He sees Noel coming in trough the front door, he’s having a half-done frozen pizza in the kitchen. Cold tomatoes in his mouth, his fists clenches the fabric of his sweatshirt. They are home alone and Noel knows and Liam stares at him as he comes into the room, sits down in front of him. Noel’s lips are so pretty and that’s Liam’s favourite jumper. It’s silent, as if someone has cut of the phone lines again. He doesn't dare to say something, afraid that his words with cause Noel to leave.

  
”I should’ve stayed the other night.” His brother is the first to speak. It means _I’m sorry I left you the other night._

 

”It’s alright.”

 

”Liam.”

 

”Noel” Liam answers, smiles, tentative. He frowns when Noel doesn’t smile back. Then Noel says it.

 

”No.” Liam stands up, fast, violently.

 

”A whole fucking year, you…you can’t do this to me.”

 

”It’s not about you.” Noel reaches for his shoulder, his face. He pulls away.

 

”I got fuck-all to say to you.”

 

”Okay.”

 

”I’m like, not even gonna miss you anyway.”

 

”Okay.”

 

”Seriously, there are so many other things that I-”

 

”I’m leaving now.” Noel gets up.

 

”Right.” He turns the other way, gross wet welling up in his eyes.

 

The front door closes and it’s just pouring down all over his face and into his mouth and it’s salty and disgusting and he has to support himself on the table because it’s all giving away underneath him.

  
~

 

An hour. An hour is all Liam can bear after Noel has closed the front door and the realisation that he just left and Liam didn't even fucking kiss him crashes down on him. He runs around their room, opens drawers and looks inside jeans-pockets to find the money he needs for a bus ticket. He got some coins in his trembling hand and bangs in his eyes as he runs down the road to the station. The streetlights passes him by in the corners of his eyes as he runs, blood beating in his head. 

He gets of the bus one station earlier because he knows a shortcut and he doesn't got time now. The asphalt his hard and unforgiving against the thin soles of his shoes but he can see Noel’s apartment in the distance, lights on, a second chance. He is flying up the stairs, throwing himself at the door and banging his rosy fists against the hard wood. In his head he sees his brother opening, he feels his arms around him as he imagines throwing himself in his arms and begs, pleads for him to take him with. 

”Liam?”

 

It’s not Noel who opens the door. Louise’s eyes are a bit red. Liam doesn't notice. 

 

”Where is he? Where’s Noel?”

 

”He’s not here, he left twenty minutes ago-”

 

Liam stares at her. His heart bleeds. He turns around, runs down the stairs, his steps echoing between the walls, hard and desperate to get out of there. Outside it’s cold. It’s raining again. He can’t believe it’s real. In his mind, he’s still seeing Noel opening the door, his white skin, his hands grabbing Liam’s face and telling him it’s _okay._ Liam lets his back sink down against the brick wall, the rough material tearing at his jacket. Then, he lays himself down on the cool pavement, closes the streetlights out by fluttering his eyes shut.

  
And suddenly nothing exists anymore.

 


End file.
